Was the temporary ban on admitting refugees a self-inflected necessity?

Was the temporary ban on admitting refugees a self-inflected necessity?

If one can step away from emotion and political affiliations for a few moments and look at the story history tells through the use of data, one might see another point of view. Unlike the media, I am not going to spin the data to tell you what the data means. I make no apologies, because you are going to have to figure it out for yourself.

I will share with you two sets of cumulative data on the admittance of refugees for the last eight-years and three-months. The documents used (links provided at the end) are; the FY 2009 thru 2015 Refugee Admissions Statistics, and the Excel Spread sheet, Summary of Refugee Admissions which includes both FY 2016 and the first three months of FY 2017 ending 31-December-2016.

Cumulative totals for Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia as reported by the Department of State:

FY 2009
Iran 5,381
Iraq 18,838
Syria 25
Yemen 47
Total 24,291

FY 2010
Iran 3,543
Iraq 18,016
Libya 1
Syria 25
Yemen 15
Total 21,603

FY 2011
Iran 2,032
Iraq 9,388
Libya 1
Syria 29
Total 11,450

FY 2012
Iran 1,758
Iraq 12,163
Libya 5
Syria 31
Total 13,975

FY 2013
Iran 2,578
Iraq 19,488
Libya 1
Syria 36
Total 22,103

FY 2014
Iran 2,846
Iraq 19,769
Syria 105
Yemen 3
Total 22,723

FY 2015
Iran 3,109
Iraq 12,676
Syria 1,682
Yemen 16
Total 17,485

FY 2016
Iran 3,750
Iraq 9,880
Libya 1
Syria 12,587
Yemen 26
Total 26,244

FY 2017
Iran 1,061
Iraq 3,624
Libya 3
Syria 3,566
Yemen 4
Total 8,258 (1)

(1) Three months into FY 2017 Iran was on track for 4,244; Iraq on track for 14,496; Syria on track for 14,256. These three countries alone could have totaled about 32,996 refugees.

Of the approx 79 countries 25,671 refugees, were admitted in first three months of FY 2017 ending on 31-December-2016. If the current pace continued, 102,684 folks could have been admitted.

Looking at both the 'Ceiling and Admitted' figures for the same years:

FY 2009: 80,000 and 74,654
FY 2010: 80,000 and 73,311
FY 2011: 80,000 and 56,424
FY 2012: 76,000 and 58,238
FY 2013: 70,000 and 69,926
FY 2014: 70,000 and 69,987
FY 2015: 70,000 and 69,933
FY 2016: 85,000 and 84,994 (2)
FY 2017: 110,000 and 25,671 (3)

(2) In FY 2016 the Ceiling was raised by an additional 15,000 individuals. Not accounting for government holidays that was approximately an additional 57 to 58 refugees processed and possibly admitted every day.

(3) In FY 2017 the Ceiling was increased by another 25,000 refugees to 110,000. Raising the two-year total to 40,000 additional potential refugee's each year from FY 2015. Allowing a potential daily increase of 154 to 155 additional refugee's to be investigated, processed, and admitted.

The numbers above do not include an unknown number of refugees who applied, were processed, investigated, and then refused entry.

Commentary:

My concerns.

What I have not found yet, is evidence showing where the government hired additional qualified personnel to adequately process the additional 40,000 possibly admitted refugees, and provide a reasonable minimal level of public safety.

At some point, and I do not know if we have reached that point, or gone beyond that point, yet. The Government is going to fail to do its job, and the public is going to pay a price because of it.

I hope, we have not passed that point.

Bruce Kendall

Fast Radio Burst

Many scientists and astrophysicists are studying a particular FRB (Fast Radio Bursts) which are coming from a very small galaxy over 3 billion light years away.  This FRB known as 121102 was discovered in 2012.  It has been studied by the Max Planck Institute in Germany as well as at many observatories around the world.  This is a very strange FRB in that it is a repeater.  These FRB's are not known to be repeating as this one is doing.  Many are wondering why and how this is occurring especially on regular intervals.

Here is what many have summed up about this FRB.  "But some of the authors also cautioned that the repeating nature of FRB 121102 could indicate that it is somehow physically different than other known FRB's. FRB 121102 is not alone. The researchers also found a persistent source of radio waves in the same area of the sky, and the evidence suggests that both sources of radio waves are connected somehow; they either arose from the same source or are linked in some other way, the researchers said. The results of these studies will appear in three separate papers on Jan. 5 — one in the journal Nature and two in The Astrophysical Journal Letters."  This subject will continue to be studied in the years to come to try and come up with a feasible idea as to why this is occurring.

Dr. Mike Moon PhD.

A New Attack on Personal Freedom by a Local Municipality in Georgia

A New Attack on Personal Freedom by a Local Municipality in Georgia

To begin with I would like to stress that I am not a smoker and never have  been.  I never 

wanted to smoke and it is my right  and choice not to.  And in the same vein, I feel that if 

someone wishes to smoke in their own car or home,  and yard that is their right to do so.

I have heard that the City of Stockbridge in Henry County wishes to create an ordinance that 

says you cannot smoke in your car with a child aboard.  I see this as a governmental intrusion upon the private life of a citizen.  In the Declaration of Independence, it says that people have the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that show three examples of the unalienable rights which the Creator or God and which governments were created to protect. The City of Stockbridge should be protecting the individual right for a person to smoke in their car.  Georgia law says that the citizens car is an extension of their home.  I don't like seeing individual rights abated by the government in any form.  This is a road that has a slippery slope to it that will cause further governmental intrusion into your lives. The most obvious concern is perhaps the most troubling: a fear that these laws invite a new level of government intrusion into people’s private lives. Many people believe that they have a sphere of privacy in their cars, much like in their homes.  For example the following case law is a good point of reference:

In City of Zion v. Behrens,  the Supreme Court of Illinois invalidated a

city ordinance that made it unlawful to smoke tobacco in any public place because it was “apparently an attempt on the part of the municipality to regulate and control the habits and practices  of the citizen without any reasonable basis for so doing.”  The court further found that the ordinance could not be upheld on the grounds of preventing fire and protecting city property because it sought to control smoking in places other than those with highly combustible materials. This also would have carried over into the home and vehicle of the citizen and they found this unlawful. Another case law example is the following:

In Hershberg v. City of Barbourville,  for example, the Kentucky Court of

Appeals struck down a local ordinance that made it illegal to smoke within the city limits of Barbourville because the law was so broad as to make it illegal to smoke within one’s own home or other private premises and vehicles.  They found this unconstitutional. We must stress that we have to protect that which we don't like because if not then we are sacrificing our freedoms in the long run.

In summing up,  the right of privacy is a broad concept, used in diverse contexts to refer to a variety of claims or entitlements. One of the more significant branches of the right of privacy concerns the right of an individual to make personal decisions about his or her life free from government control; that is, the right of individual autonomy. The right of individual autonomy or privacy potentially may encompass matters such as the right to marry, the right to have a family, the right of reproductive freedom, the right of bodily integrity, the right to ingest substances such as alcohol and smoking,  the right to refuse medical treatment. and so on.  The concept of privacy or autonomy often is used interchangeably with the concept of liberty, both referring to a fundamental right of self-determination. The right of privacy is based on the principle that “a person belongs to himself and not others nor to society as a whole.” It embodies a sense of “personhood”—an “autonomy of self”—that should remain free from intrusion or coercion by society or the government. It comprehends that there are certain personal decisions concerning one’s life that an individual should be able to make for oneself free from interference by the state.  The right of privacy has developed primarily through decisions of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the Federal Constitution. It is the right of privacy for a person to smoke in a home or vehicle that is theirs.  If a child is in the vehicle the parent is usually the one who is driving and if they wish to smoke around their child it is their choice as  a parent.  When the government steps into your life in this manner to try and ban you from smoking in your car or home it is another step towards a dictatorial government that has it's fingers in too much of your life as it is today.  And for a city that has been embroiled in too many court cases for over a decade now, they shouldn't  go down this road of attacking a citizens rights.  They should go about the job they were elected to do and make sure the citizens have a police, fire, roads and utilities instead of getting into the cars and bedrooms of the community.

Dr. Mike Moon